about

some basics

About the Site

I built this website to organize my research and house my experimental poetry blog, nonsensicalifornia, a space concerned with the mysteries and absurdities of human emotion and language.

About Me

I'm Katie Ancheta. You may have also known me as Katie Bierach.

I was born in Berkeley and raised in the Silicon Valley. I moved to the Los Angeles area in 2005.

I work in corporate communications, driving messaging and content development to support business goals and build employee engagement.

I previously worked as an editor, developing textbooks, websites, and other digital products for teaching and learning.

In 2017, I completed by Master of Arts degree in English at California State University Northridge, studying rhetoric and composition. I remain particularly interested in how discourses use language to maintain, promote, and disrupt power; and in exploring feminist and linguistic approaches to rhetoric.

I earned my Bachelor of Art's degree in English at California Lutheran University, graduating Summa Cum Laude, as valedictorian, with university honors. While at CLU, I worked in the Writing Center as a Tutor and as Student Coordinator. I also served as Editor-in-Chief for the university's literary magazine, Morning Glory, which won an ACP Pacemaker award under my leadership in 2009. Additionally, I won the Mark van Doren Poetry Prize in 2008 and in 2009.